Among lifestyle habits, a dietary habit is heavily influential on one's health. An unhealthy diet habit is one of causes of adult diseases or lifestyle-related diseases like cancers, gout, hyperuricemia, hyperlipemia, arteriosclerotic diseases, coronary artery diseases, cerebrovascular disorders, and hypertension. Many of these symptoms are mutually influential on each other. Therefore, not only does a single symptom develop, but two or more symptoms often appear at the same time. For example, major coronary risk factors include hypertension and diabetes (from Japan Atherosclerosis Society (JAS) Guidelines for Prevention of Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Diseases (2002)). Hypertension and diabetes are also listed as risk factors for hyperlipemia (see Non-Patent Document 1). Cases are also known in which patients with gout suffer a complication such as hypertension or diabetes. In Japan today, nearly two-thirds of causes of death are associated with adult diseases or lifestyle-related diseases. To address this problem, The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Japan (MHLW) has been promoting the “Healthy Japan 21” campaign since 2000 (from annual reports of MHLW).
While having a balanced diet is ideal, modern people tend to have a disorderly diet, and quite a few people compensate for the imbalance of their diet by taking nutritional supplement. Cartilage of animal origin, such as shark cartilage or bovine cartilage, is one of drug substances or materials of nutritional supplement that have been used over the years. Some of such cartilage extracts with high purity have been employed for medication, and those with relatively low purity in form of a carbohydrate or peptide mixture have been mostly made use of as foodstuffs, either solid or liquid. Animal cartilage is decomposed, extracted, and purified to obtain two types of products in the marketplace. One type is those featuring polysaccharides such as chondroitin sulfate and proteoglycans consisting of core protein and a polysaccharide bound thereto and supplied as hyaluronic acid, chondroitin sulfate or chondroitin sulfate protein complexes. The other type is those featuring protein components derived from collagen and supplied as collagen or collagen peptides. A few examples of these products include chondroitin sulfate for medical use, chondroitin sulfate SCP for edible use, and fish collagen WP (all available from Maruha Corp.). It is said that continued dosing of these products produces beneficial effects in preventing adult diseases such as a cancer and lifestyle-related diseases such as arteriosclerotic diseases and hyperuricemia, reducing joint pains, improving skin conditions, suppressing aging, and the like. For example, continued ingestion of chondroitin sulfate SCP for edible use (from Maruha Corp.) produces beneficial effects in preventing hyperuricemia, gout, and osteoporosis (see Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2).    Non-Patent Document 1: Nobuhiro Yamada (ed.), Junkanki Now 12, Doumyakukouka Koushiketsusyo, p. 153    Patent Document 1 Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-335698    Patent Document 2 Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-3248170